Reconnection and reflexivity in Islamabad, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of informal food spaces and flows in Islamabad, Pakistan. This paper aims to address two key questions in the areas of food and urbanism in Islamabad: How do the city’s residents perceive and experience the so-called “non-urban” food spaces and flows in their everyday lives? How do these spaces contribute to a nuanced understanding of global food systems? This paper considers that these spaces are critical in engendering nostalgia for past food habits and behaviours, a trigger for reflexive consumerism, and sites for reconnecting with different aspects of the country’s food system. The paper also explores how such spaces can be conceptualised within urbanism and geography, in the context of Islamabad’s unique spatial and socio-cultural identity. Informed by urbanism and food geography, this paper considers analytical and theoretical strategies for advancing the study of the urban in the global south, and specifically in Pakistan.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamabad
• Pakistan
• urbanism
• food consumption
• bazaar

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Here, “informality” is not restricted to economic activities that take place out of the formal and legitimised labour networks, or resistance of the poor against the government (Cruz 2007), but as a broader term to indicate the spaces, activities, and the mode through which these are produced, that appear on the distinct spaces between the urban and the non-urban (Roy 2011). Therefore, they may still be part of the formal, organised labour force, but they stand separate from the designed urbanity of the city – such as the produce stalls propped up against roadsides.

2. Pakistan has a population of 207.77 million – a 57% increase since the census of 1998 (the last conducted census before the census of 2017) (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics). The population growth is spatially uneven, with the provinces of Punjab and Sindh having the largest concentration of people, and the sparse and sprawling province of Balochistan with the smallest.

3. See also, Khan (1996) for environmental problems arising from Pakistani urbanisation, Ahmed (1996) for the ethnic tensions driven by urbanisation, the World Bank Group (2015) report on the messy and hidden side of urbanisation in Pakistan, Anwar’s (2013) examination of Karachi’s peripheral urbanization and Kugelman’s (2014) edited volume containing essays on Pakistan’s “unstoppable urbanisation”.

4. While “food landscapes” and “foodscapes” have a rich history in disciplines like urban studies and cultural geography, this paper is considering a food landscape in a concrete way by considering the places urban residents encounter in relation of food and eating. Therefore, the physical and organizational components of an individual’s “food environment” are part of their city’s food landscape. For theoretical engagements with “foodscapes” see, for example, Goodman (2016) on visceral frameworks in examining foodscapes, Cummins and Macintyre (2002) on their study on price and availability in Glasgow’s foodscape, and Morgan and Sonnino (2010) on changing food strategies and “placeless foodscapes” in a changing world.

5. For a detailed exploration of Islamabad’s development and changes in the urban plan, see Daeschel (2013).

6. Authenticity and identity are beyond the scope of this paper, but this quotation from Harper (2010) is useful in summarizing the comments about Islamabad from the respondents for this study. While the body of work on authenticity is well-established, see Handler (1986), Linnekin (1991), and Low (2003) for in-depth explorations of culture, anthropology, and authenticity.

7. A discussion of the gender dynamic in food decision-making exceeds the scope of this paper. No attempt was made to exclude men from responding during the course of the fieldwork but they would often choose to defer to women in the household for questions related to household food sourcing.

8. Pseudonyms are used for study participants throughout this paper.

9. The food preferences, ideas of “good food”, and relationship with alternative food networks of these respondents is examined in detail in another publication: see Hasnain (2018) for how Islamabadi residents conceptualize “good” food.

10. “Burger culture” denotes the highly westernised and sheltered generation of Pakistan. Being a “burger” implies that the person is sheltered and detached from the realities of the country, has international exposure (either by being an overseas Pakistani, or having studied abroad), prefers consuming Western food, and has better command over English than their regional language.

11. The city is divided into sectors, with each sector divided into four sub-sectors. Each sub-sector has a mini-market (containing produce shops, butchers, tailors, barbers, etc.), and the sector overall has a larger sector-market. A few sectors have even larger markets that contain chain stores, cafes, restaurants, etc. For example, the “F-7 Market” is called the “Jinnah Supermarket”.

12. An Islamic festival signified by the sacrifice of animals and carrying out the major pilgrimage in Mecca.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saher Hasnain

Saher Hasnain is an environmental geographer with interests in food systems, food systems foresight, food environments, and urban health issues. Her doctoral thesis focused on the influence of factors like fuel scarcities and terrorism on food systems transformations, food consumption, and spatial mobility in urban Pakistan. She is currently working as a Researcher at the Food Systems Group at the Environmental Change Institute. She has previously worked on interdisciplinary approaches to studying environmental health issues in urban areas at the University of Pennsylvania, and policy proposals for the development of national level energy management cultures at Bahria University, with The National Energy Conservation Centre, Government of Pakistan.